


There's a Place in the Buried West

by Kellybear42



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Crack, Gen, Horror, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:50:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21591016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kellybear42/pseuds/Kellybear42
Summary: While looking for shelter during a blizzard, Arthur finds an abandoned cabin and spends a night.But he isn't alone.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Backstory: I wrote this for a competition in a writing club. The competition's prompt was to write the same scene twice, but one as a horror story and the other as a comedy. I ended up winning the competition and it gave me enough confidence to upload it online.  
> The first chapter will be the horror story, and the second will be the comedy.
> 
> The title comes from the song 'I Bleed' by the Pixies

The snow had started not long after Arthur Morgan had entered the Grizzlies. He didn’t think much about it. The snow was just flurries, that melted on contact with the ground and Axinite’s dark mane. The snow, even with how little there was, brought a calmness to the surrounding area. Rabbits didn't dart across the trail, letting Axinite calmly trot along the evergreen trees. 

The snow grew while Arthur was hunting a deer. He hadn't noticed until after he had let his arrow go. The once calm woods was filled with a howling wind. Once Arthur was done skinning the deer he noticed the small flurries had turned into a blizzard.

Arthur whistled for Axinite, who he had left by the trail to graze. He didn't hear her hoof beats over the wind until she was practically on top of him. He tied the deer carcass unto his horse’s back. Arthur had never been as thankful for his gloves than he did at that moment, tying it on. He then climbed onto Axinite and lead her in a slow trot back to the campsite. 

Arthur was hoping his luck would hold up until he had entered the valley. Like everything in his life, it didn’t go according to plan. 

The wind and snow had picked up. Arthur was glad he had forgotten his hat at his tent, for he would surely had lost it in the blizzard. He lead Axinite even more slowly, if that was possible, trying to make out some sort of shelter in the three feet he could see ahead of him. 

“You got this girl,” he whispered to his horse. He wouldn’t admit it was more for his comfort than her’s. “Just a couple more minutes and we’ll be home.”

A nearby wolf howled, its cry piercing even in the wind. Axinite picked up her pace, not wanting the wolf to get any closer. Arthur didn’t want it to as well, thoughts of John getting attacked just last winter ran through his mind. When at camp, he wouldn’t tell anyone what he had thought of, John didn’t need to stroke his ego anymore. 

Arthur had given up on leading Axinite. He couldn’t see anything and didn’t know where they were, but apparently Axinite did. She showed no signs of hesitation as she braved the winter storm, weaving between trees that he Arthur couldn’t see. She was going to get a nice treat when they got back to camp.

If they got back to camp, Arthur’s mind whispered. 

He didn’t dwell on this thought for long, Axinite stopping had shocked him to attention. “What’s wrong, girl?” He asked as he stroked her mane.  
She pawed at the ground. 

“C’mon girl, we gotta get back home.” He kicked his spurs into her sides, urging her forward. She started walking, but much slower than before. Not long after, she stopped and Arthur finally knew why.  
Right in front of him was a cabin. The lack of smoke rising from the stone chimney signified it was abandoned. The snow covered most of the building, but Arthur could see that the windows and doors were boarded up. 

Arthur slowly got off Axinite, clutching his bear fur coat closer to his body. He trudged through the calf high snow and into the porch, its creaks under his weight clear despite the storm. He grasped the frozen boards with his equally frozen hands and tugged. He had to steady himself, the wood came off easier than he had thought. The Other boards that covered the door came off just as easily.  
The cabin was large, larger than it looked on the outside. There were stairs that lead down, a kitchen and a main room. Dust covered every available surface, cobwebs covered the rest. There was a lone chair in front of the fireplace in the main room. 

Arthur quickly checked the basement of the house. There were dust covered shelves with what looked like cans of peaches. It was empty.  
Satisfied with the state of the house, Arthur went outside to unpack Axinite. He took off the deer carcass and placed it inside the cabin, he took off the saddle and the bags. He covered her with a blanket after tying her to the rotting porch handrail. He gave a tug on the worn leather strap, making sure that it was loose enough to get away if the wolves had somehow followed them.  
He entered the cabin, and placed the saddle bags by the door. He took the boards once covering the door and put it inside the fireplace. With some whiskey and a match, he lit it ablaze.  
The fire cracked, overwhelming the wind rustling through the cabin. Arthur sat near the fire, warming up his cold bones before he would open some canned vegetables for a small dinner. He ran a frozen hand through his hair, brushing melting snow off. 

The howling of wolves brought Arthur's attention away from the fire and to the door. 

It was rattling.

Something wanted in.

Cautiously, Arthur unholstered one of his revolvers, the worn ivory handle welcoming his hand. He pulled back the hammer.

The rattling stopped.

And so did the howling.

Arthur unconsciously moved closer to the fire, its warmth not as welcoming as before. His gun did not leave his hand.

“It was just the wind,” He muttered to himself.

“It was just the wind?” someone behind Arthur whispered into his ear.

He quickly turned toward the voice. The cabin was empty.

A bang came from the basement. Another from the roof. 

The wind had stopped.

Arthur wearily got to his feet, his body protesting the whole way. Every part of his body told him just to run away. To get as far away from the cabin as possible. 

Arthur was never good at listening. He walked towards the basement door. It creaked open as Arthur gave it a slight push. 

The dark basement taunted him. The darkness seemed to grow towards the main floor. It was hungry. It would never be satisfied.

Arthur slammed the door shut. He held it closed, his body pressed into the wood, wanting to be anywhere but there. The emptiness of the cabin welcomed Arthur’s hurried breathing. It reminded him of the time he ran across the great plains chasing Axinite who had gotten spooked by a snake.

He wanted to leave. 

He would have done anything to be back home. Where his surrogate family was. Where he was safe. 

The wood under his weight shook. The darkness wanted to feed. And it would do anything to get what it wanted. 

Arthur slowly kneeled down and reached for his gun he had dropped in his rush to close the door. Once it had entered his hand the door stopped shaking.

But the noise from the roof started again.

The trigger was flawlessly pulled, a shot rang out in the empty world towards the sound.

It continued.

Arthur shot it again. And again. And again. He emptied all the gun’s chambers into the roof. All that had changed was that snow started to silently fall into the room. 

Something was still out there. 

The banging continued and there was the sound of snow crunching under a great weight. 

Arthur found himself by the fireplace, the entryway in his sights as he slowly packed up his items. There wasn’t much and he was ready to leave within a minute. He left the deer by the covered window, forgotten. His saddle bags lay across his left shoulder. His right hand still held his revolver, newly reloaded. 

The floorboards creaked under his weight as he moved towards the front door. At the door, he pressed his ear to the wood, hoping to hear evidence that the monster, for that was the only thing it could be, moved on.

The banging was slowing down until the cabin came to a stand still.

The floorboards creaked.

The thing was inside.

Arthur turned and wished he hadn't. He wished that he had just rushed out of the cabin, gotten on Axinite and got out of the mountain. 

The monster leaned over him, its body too tall for the cabin's constraints. Its knuckles dragged on the floor by its clawed feet. The snow reflected off of its white gray skin. Skin that was smooth, that could hardly contain the monster's bones. The bones seemed to contort without moving. There wasn’t a face. The head was a blank canvas with depressions that showed where the facial features would have been. Instead, the skin was pulled tight across it, unbroken. 

Arthur was frozen in place, staring at the monster. The monster stood in place, staring at Arthur. 

The saddle bags dropped, the thump taking the monster’s attention away from Arthur to the bags. It crouched down to get a closer look, its bones scraping against skin and the wooden floor. 

"What the-" Arthur gasped. He didn't mean to, he didn't mean to receive the monster's attentive stare again. 

The monster sharply lifted its head from the bag towards Arthur. 

"What the?"

The voice came rumbling from within the monster's ribs. It sounded like nails being scraped across a blackboard.

"What the?" It tried again. It sounded less harsh.

"What the?" It sounded human now. 

It sounded like Arthur.

Arthur brough up his gun, and pointed it at the monster. The metal rattling together as Arthur’s hand shook.

He had never been this scared before, but he had never run into a nightmare before. 

The nightmare who looked more and more human by the second.

Skin had filled out and looked tan versus it’s once deathly white. Its face started to pull apart and eyes, lips, and a nose grew from the holes created. Bones had receded into itself, causing the monster to be only slightly taller than Arthur's six foot stance. Clothes ripped out of the skin, covering the less deformed body. The clothes were an exact copy of Arhtur’s winter coat and jeans.

It was kind of poetic, all the time spent thinking he was a monster, and there was an actual monster before him that wore his face.

The two Arthurs stared at each other, one in horror, one in curiosity. 

The Original Arthur unloaded his pistol into the Other Arthur, never missing. The Other Arthur didn’t even flinch. Blood didn’t run down its torso. There wasn’t even a hole in the winter coat.  
It opened its new mouth, and grinned. Its mouth stretched across its face and showed sharp, blinding white teeth. Too many teeth. 

It lunged forward, its slightly long hands stretched towards Arthur. A gust of wind pushed him against the door, where it held him until the monster would get to him.

The Other Arthur sunk his nails into Arthur’s neck and shoulder. Its mouth was uncomfortably close, its breath smelling like a corpse.

He screamed. It was a primal scream, one that ripped out of his throat. The pain was unimaginable. Nothing natural could ever create such a pain. 

Nothing natural could stand such a pain.

The door collapsed under the extreme pressure the monster out on it, put on Arthur. Snow fell into Arthur’s mouth as he gasped for air. 

The monster grinned. It opened its mouth. It bit down. 

Arthur could feel the teeth scrape across his spine and his muscles. He was going to die. 

The Other Arthur got off of the original. It wiped its face clean of his blood. No one was going to know how he died. 

The Other Arthur walked over to Axinite, who stood where he had left her. She didn’t even notice what was going on. He was going to die alone. 

The Other Arthur put the once forgotten saddle bags unto Axinte and prepared her for riding. Arthur then lead Axinite out of the clearing by her reigns. 

The Other Arthur lay on the ground and breathed no more.

Arthur was finally going home. He wondered why kind of welcoming he would receive. He hoped it would be similar to his with the Other Arthur.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a reminder, this is the comedic version of the previous chapter.

The snow had started not long after Arthur Morgan had entered the Grizzlies. He didn’t think much about it. The snow was just flurries, that melted on contact with the ground and Axinite’s dark mane. The snow, even with how little there was, brought a calmness to the surrounding area. Rabbits didn't dart across the trail, letting Axinite calmly trot along the evergreen trees. 

The snow grew while Arthur was hunting a deer. He hadn't noticed until after he had let his arrow go. The once calm woods was filled with a howling wind. Once Arthur was done skinning the deer he noticed the small flurries had turned into a blizzard.

Arthur whistled for Axinite, who he had left by the trail to graze. He didn't hear her hoof beats over the wind until she was practically on top of him. He tied the deer carcass unto his horse’s back. Arthur had never been as thankful for his gloves than he did at that moment, tying it on. He than got on Axinite and lead her in a slow trot back to his campsite. 

But instead of the familiar tent and bedroll, Arthur found a small rundown cabin in what he could have sworn was where he set up his campsite. It was very possible he had gotten lost in the snow storm, but Arthur had been traveling through snow since he was a child, he knew how to go to the correct places.

“What in the world?” he mumbled as he got closer to the cabin. It wasn’t what he had expected to find, but he wasn’t really complaining. Four walls would protect him better from the snow than his tent ever could. 

“What the heck, why not?” Arthur gave a slight push to the front door and let himself in. 

The cabin was small, only made up of two rooms, a kitchen and what was used as a dining room and a bedroom. A run down bed sat by an equally run down table with only one chair. A fireplace divided the two rooms. 

A fireplace with a pile of logs next to it that Arthur could not resist. He lit the fireplace with a match and brought the chair in front of it. The cabin was somewhat cozy with the fire going, if one forgot about its abandoned status and how there wasn’t any food in the kitchen cupboards.

Arthur’s rumination was interrupted by a loud growl from something in the cabin. Arthur, unholstered his pistol and brought it out in front of him as he searched the cabin for what was making that sound. He found spiders and a dead rat. His search came up empty.

He had almost convinced he had imagined the noise when he heard it again, this time from outside the cabin. He walked over to the front window and after wiping off the dust, looked to see if he could see anything in the clearing and surrounding forest. The snow covered most of his view, but he could have sworn he saw something out there. Something tall. Something inhuman. 

“C’mon,” he told himself. “You’re just tired, you’re not seeing right. Just get some sleep and everything will be back to normal.”

Arthur cleaned the bed, that surprisingly still had a mattress, of dust and laid down. He kept his gun under the pillow and used his winter coat as a blanket. He must have been more tired than he thought he was because despite being uncomfortable, he was out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

He woke to the sound of Axinite neighing loudly. Something was wrong.

He put on his coat and grabbed his gun. The fire had died and the dust on the windows prevented any light from coming inside the cabin. Arthur barely avoided crashing into the table in his rush to get outside. 

Okay, he did run into it. But he had not let out a small scream as he did so. And he did not think it was whatever was growling earlier and had pulled his gun on it. He didn’t. 

What he did do was open the door and scan for what would have scared Axinite before he went over to her. He wasn’t dumb enough to rush towards her without scanning the clearing. He really wasn’t.

From what he could see, Axinite was perfectly fine. She was digging through the snow to get to the grass to eat. She didn’t look aggravated at all. Arthur put his gun into his coat jacket in lieu of his holster he took off in the cabin.

“What’s wrong girl?” Arthur asked as he petted her neck. 

She continued to dig around in the snow. 

There was another neigh. 

Arthur looked out into the forest. The snow had stopped sometime while he was asleep, allowing him to use the full moon to see what was going on around him. “Is anyone there?”

Nothing answered. 

Arthur gave Axinite another pat, and went back into the cabin, deciding that it would be best if he left for his actual campsite. Or if he still couldn’t find it, back home.

Once inside, he quickly grabbed this things and went to pack up Axinite. 

Who there were two of. 

Why were there two Axinites?

It wasn’t like it was another mustang with the same coat color and hair. It was another Axinite. They both had the same saddle, both had a deer carcass tied on their back, both were his horse. 

“What in the world happened?”

One of the Axinites neighed and shook her head.

Arthur went up to one of the Axinites and looked for identifying features, like the small scar she had gotten while running away from some people who were a little too trigger happy. She had left him in a ravine with no option other than to fight. And she had the decency to act like the world was ending when she had gotten a scratch and he was barely keeping himself from passing out from blood loss. 

The Axinite had the scar. And so did the other, Arthur found out after checking. Arthur swore in bewilderment. 

“Well,” he drawled, “I guess I’ll be taking you both back home.” 

The trip took longer than he thought. The Axinite he was riding kept on tripping over the smallest rocks, like she wasn’t used to walking. And the Axinite he had tied to the saddle’s horn kept on bumping into the other Axinite. The trip was like babysitting toddlers. Toddlers who could crush him under their weight.

Before they had gone into the familiar camp outside of Valentine, Arthur got off of Axinite and made sure both were paying attention as he talked to them.

“You girls have to behave, Hosea won’t take me getting another horse too lightly. He already thinks I have a hoarding problem. So you better make sure y'all be on your best behavior, I want to keep ya both, ya hear?” 

The horses stared at him. Arthur took it as a yes. 

“C’mon girls.” He lead them through the trees to the hitching post, where Charles was brushing his own horse. “Hello Charles,” Arthur greeted.

“Hello Arthur,” came the reply. He didn’t even take a second look at the two Axinites. 

If everything went to crap, at least he would have Charles who would be on his side on keeping both the horses. Which he would need, if the look on Hosea’s face had anything to say about it.


End file.
